THE situation in Afghanistan is fraught with danger from the Indian point of view and it remains to be seen how Prime Minister Narendra Modi handles it. The relatively safe Indian consulate in Herut was attacked on the eve of the oath-taking by the new government in New Delhi. Outgoing President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai blamed the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba for the attack. An Indian worker was kidnapped in Herut a few days later. In the circumstances, it appears that India faces heavy risks in troubled Afghanistan. The US pull-out is imminent and does not seem altogether welcome. The Obama government has not bothered to wait for the election of the new Afghan President before rolling out his plan for withdrawing the country’s presence from Afghan territory. Only 9,800 US troops will remain in that country after 2014. The pull-out will be completed by 2016. There has been an exchange of five terrorists for a suspected US army deserter, Bowe Bergdahle who had been held captive by the Haqqani network. It is likely to step up Taliban insurgency and may lead to a return of the chaos of the 1990s.
India has a considerable stake in Afghanistan and has to deal with not only a resurgent Taliban but also a hostile ISI-military complex in Pakistan. New Delhi should try to make a trilateral deal with Kabul and Washington to protect its assets. Of course, a joint Indo-Pak approach to Afghanistan can prevent competition between New Delhi and Islamabad apart from creating mutual trust. Taliban extremism has got to be contained to prevent it from spilling into Pakistan and disturbing the normalization of relations between India and its northern neighbour.
